Thursday, June 18, 2009

Chocolate Crumb Bars


Late Sunday afternoon we were invited to an impromptu barbecue being held by some neighbors. Fun! Wait! We're loading up and getting ready to head out on a 7-day camping trip...I have nothing to bring to this barbecue. "No problem," my neighbor tells me, "Just bring a dessert!" Um, okay, but I have nothing in my refrigerator that isn't going camping because I knew I'd be gone for a week! Well, I ran to my cookbook/notebook and looked for a recipe that would use only things I had and could be ready in one hour and 15 minutes or less. I stumbled across a recipe for Chocolate Crumb Bars and, in so doing, lucked out!

This recipe is one of those Very Best Baking recipes that come to me via email from Nestle. If I see a recipe that piques my interest, I print it out and put it in my notebook to be made at a later date. Obviously, I kept overlooking this one because I printed it out on 4/28/2005 and have never tried it!

Chocolate Crumb Bars
www.verybestbaking.com

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips , divided
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk (I've started stocking this in my pantry-thank goodness!)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts, optional (obviously, I left these out)

Directions:
PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan.

BEAT butter in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in flour, sugar and salt until crumbly. With floured fingers, press 2 cups crumb mixture onto bottom of prepared baking pan; reserve remaining mixture. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

COMBINE 1 cup chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk in a small, heavy-duty saucepan. Warm over low heat, stirring until smooth. Stir in vanilla extract. Spread over hot crust.

STIR nuts and remaining chocolate chips into reserved crumb mixture; sprinkle over chocolate filling. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set. Cool in pan on wire rack.

Cut and serve like brownies.

Well, I whipped them up quickly and had them at the neighbors right on time. We had a terrific time and it was fun start to our vacation. Plus, I discovered a new recipe that I liked! A win-win all around.

4 comments:

Melissa Henning said...

*falls on the floor and rolls onto back like Logan when he is pretending to be hurt* man these look good...

Lorrie said...

Boy they look great...I'll be printing this one and saving it for sure.

Andrea @ The Train To Crazy said...

mmmm....

MaMa eNCHaNTeD said...

Dang, so much for my run this morning, I just gained about 7.3 lbs just looking at that ooey gooey chocolatey yumminess.